Genetic Diversity of Vietnamese Pig Breeds

Abstract

Directed selection for economically desirable traits can lead to genetic erosion of individual breeds. A genetic base thus diminished is likely to limit the potential for improving production characteristics that may be vital for sustainable agricultural systems in the future. According to the FAO inventory 55% of the world’s pigs are located in the Asian and Pacific region, representing 37% of the breeds listed by the FAO (Scherf, 2000). A number of studies have been conducted on the genetic diversity of European (Laval et al., 2000) and Chinese pig breeds (Li et al., 2000) and a new international cooperation project has been started recently to evaluate 50 Chinese breeds in comparison with 59 European breeds (Blott et al., 2003). Polymorphic molecular genetic markers provide a means of assessing within and between breed genetic diversity. Micro satellite markers are recommended for studies of livestock diversity due to their abundant and even distribution throughout the genome, high polymorphism and comparative ease of genotyping. They have been used to characterise a wide variety of farm animal breeds in several species. This study is concerned with the evaluation of 10 micro satellite markers in five Vietnamese indigenous pig breeds with a diverse geographical origin, the assessment of their level of genetic diversity and the estimation of genetic distances among them.

The study was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).